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Last November, the Houston Chronicle completed a database analysis of the changing population patterns of the state and the changing voting proclivities of key demographic blocs. Our conclusion: Texas would become competitive by 2020 and a true toss-up state by 2024 if current turnout and partisan voting patterns continued.

But what if Latinos — historically a group that votes with far less frequency than the rest of the population — started voting at the same rate as everyone else, as Battleground Texas is seeking to accomplish? How much would that narrow the Republicans’ advantage in Texas?

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Now we realize that’s easier said than done, but here are the cold, clear numbers of what might have been …

Mitt Romney carried Texas by a margin of 15.8 percent over President Obama in 2012. If Latino citizens had voted at the same rate as non-Hispanic whites, Romney’s victory margin would shrink to 5.4 points. This shift would have made Texas the state with the second smallest margin of victory of any state Mitt Romney won, behind battleground North Carolina and just ahead of Georgia.

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This is one of our biggest challenges here in Texas. If we can help get out the Latino vote, we can change our state.

In the past year, Texas women watched as lawmakers slashed funding for family planning and passed the "Sonogram Law" which, you may recall, forces women seeking abortions to undergo a sonogram a full 24 hours before the procedure. In retrospect, the 2011 legislative session basically operated as a reminder to Texas women that while we can have babies, we can't have a voice.

Now, in reaction to the lack of available family planning resources, New American Media is reporting on women in Texas border towns who travel to Mexico to obtain Misoprostol (also known as Cytotec), an ulcer medication that, when taken in high doses, can terminate unwanted pregnancies in the first nine weeks. The drug works quickly, is (relatively) cheap and available without a prescription.

But despite Misoprostol's effectiveness, healthcare providers worry about the lack of medical supervision for women taking the drug. Pharmacists in Mexico are not required to be trained or licensed and women often fail to visit the doctor for follow-up exams.

As the radical measures taken against family planning continue to be implemented, there is no doubt that women will continue to find radical ways to get around them.